eBooks and Audiobooks
Project Gutenberg has proved useful in allowing downloads of many of the classics, eg Jane Austen, which can be used with voice recognition software to be read aloud for dyslexic senior Secondary/tertiary students.I'm still trying to find an easy way to scan more 'modern'/'popular' simple texts, and senior course textbooks, to allow access to Reader/voice recognition software for senior students with reading difficulties.Audio books are great for tired eyes and developing/using listening skills and there are some good popular novels for teens. Quite popular with Life Skills classes.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Online video
I've subscribed to an iGoogle feed, linked to my homepage, which has YouTube video of Makybe Diva's 3rd Melbourne Cup win; just for the archives! I also found a salutory lesson for students on Teacher Tube which will be useful to show Year X1 students so that they can see for themselves the unwitting repercussions of posting anything private online; Personal photos become public property, downloadable by anyone. Video downloads eat an enormous amount of memory; I've had to pay for extra downloads on my Broadband account. This is an issue, too, with teenage students; many working casual jobs use all their income on iPods, MP3s, mobile phones and are much more savvy about IT than their teachers. This course has certainly informed me of much I was ignorant of!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Podcasts
There is so much out there!!
I've subscribed to a news commentary feed by Dan Carlin who I've never listened to before. I mainly get my news commentary by free-to-air radio and TV, but if I ever have a free moment to explore the world of podcasts it seems fairly straightforward to access a huge inventory of reference topics. Good to know many of the public broadcasts are saved and accessible as podcasts.
It will certainly save our librarian time to access these rather than having to set up to record them for various teachers/faculties.
Odeo.com has an enormous repertoire of equestrian events which would interest me, but the cost of downloading (time/money) puts them out of my normal time/money budget.
I've subscribed to a news commentary feed by Dan Carlin who I've never listened to before. I mainly get my news commentary by free-to-air radio and TV, but if I ever have a free moment to explore the world of podcasts it seems fairly straightforward to access a huge inventory of reference topics. Good to know many of the public broadcasts are saved and accessible as podcasts.
It will certainly save our librarian time to access these rather than having to set up to record them for various teachers/faculties.
Odeo.com has an enormous repertoire of equestrian events which would interest me, but the cost of downloading (time/money) puts them out of my normal time/money budget.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Rollyo
I started a searchroll for researching information on Smart Boards.
I found it was a much slower search engine than Google, for my purposes, where I just want to scan for available information on products and usage and lesson plans for the classroom.
If I were in a position where I wanted to accumulate references for ongoing research, and wanted to develop a network of contacts researching the same topic, then it would be very useful to have a personalised online bibliography to link to, as well as current reviews of the material from like-minded researchers.
I found it was a much slower search engine than Google, for my purposes, where I just want to scan for available information on products and usage and lesson plans for the classroom.
If I were in a position where I wanted to accumulate references for ongoing research, and wanted to develop a network of contacts researching the same topic, then it would be very useful to have a personalised online bibliography to link to, as well as current reviews of the material from like-minded researchers.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
wiki
Using a wiki as a classroom tool allows collaboration at many levels of ability.
Some of those shown on school websites show excellent depth of both researched knowledge and IT skills to set up the pages with multimedia feeds.
Some geography classes at my school use classroom wikis to investigate Google Earth features.
I will try to set up a classroom wiki to allow collaborative writing with a group of Life Skills students.
Some of the maths pages which encourage reflections on problem-solving have engaged students to communicate a variety of methods.
The use of powerpoint presentations to teach topics and then invite responses looks useful; lots of tools involved on a huge variety of site.
We need to use wikis in staff development to develop staff skills cooperatively and inform staff of possibilities.
Some of those shown on school websites show excellent depth of both researched knowledge and IT skills to set up the pages with multimedia feeds.
Some geography classes at my school use classroom wikis to investigate Google Earth features.
I will try to set up a classroom wiki to allow collaborative writing with a group of Life Skills students.
Some of the maths pages which encourage reflections on problem-solving have engaged students to communicate a variety of methods.
The use of powerpoint presentations to teach topics and then invite responses looks useful; lots of tools involved on a huge variety of site.
We need to use wikis in staff development to develop staff skills cooperatively and inform staff of possibilities.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Delicious
Use of multiple tags is useful for referencing and collating information on a topic from a variety of viewpoints.
Delicious offers more feedback on usefulness of sites rather than just the site material as referenced by a search engine such as Google.
Delicious offers more feedback on usefulness of sites rather than just the site material as referenced by a search engine such as Google.
Monday, October 19, 2009
RSS feed
The use of an RSS aggregator to read updates on regularly visited sites without having to visit such sites individually is potentially very time-saving. I couldn't find any work colleagues using Google Reader to add to my subscriber list, but I did find it useful to get quick updates on professional development topics such as Asperger's syndrome, ADD, etc.
Will have to search further for individual contacts in my areas of professional expertise.
It could be useful to set up a variety of blogs with my Literacy-support-needs class to teach them skills with blogs and RSS feeds and thus motivate them to post and develop their reading/writing/technology skills.
Will have to search further for individual contacts in my areas of professional expertise.
It could be useful to set up a variety of blogs with my Literacy-support-needs class to teach them skills with blogs and RSS feeds and thus motivate them to post and develop their reading/writing/technology skills.
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